The Dance of Time

How could they bring all this here, through time, when all the Great Ones could do-and that, barely-was send you as a semi-conscious thing? Apologetically, he added: When you first arrived, I mean. You're hardly 'semi-conscious' now.

For one thing, the Great Ones aren't as ruthless. The energy expenditure required to send these machines back through time destroyed the new gods' own planet. Along with most of their people. Sub-species, it would be better to say. There were not many survivors.

Sensing the question before Belisarius could ask it, Aide added: Yes, they knew that would happen. The ones who managed it, at least. Most of their people didn't, the ones who were destroyed. Even the new gods have factions. The one that did this-which is all that is left-are…

Fanatics, Belisarius supplied. Fanaticism carried to the extremes you'd expect of "supermen." I understand.

But it was time, now, to ignore the machines. Damodara had not brought Belisarius here to deal with them. Not principally, at least.

He turned and studied the small female shackled to a chair. He couldn't see much of her, since there was a hood over her head.

Don't look, said Aide.

No. I must.

Three strides and he was there; a quick movement of the hand, and the hood was removed.

It was the face of a young girl, perhaps seven or eight years old. All but the eyes that stared up at him. Those belonged to no human being at all. Their brown color was irrelevant. The emptiness within overwhelmed it.

The girl was gagged, too.

Don't listen to it.

No, I must.

It took longer to remove the gag. The knot holding it in place was very tight. As he worked at the task, he could hear the indrawn breaths of the people behind him.

As ever, Aide's ability to enhance Belisarius' senses was handy. There were five other men in the room, and four of them were holding their breath. The fifth one was breathing the same way he always did.

Belisarius had known he would be. Had that man not been present, he might never have dared to do this. Belisarius was probably as great a general as Alexander the Great, but he never thought like Alexander. He was who he was because of the men he knew how to lead-and rely upon-not because he thought he was the son of Zeus.

The gag came off.

"LISTEN TO ME, BELISARIUS. THERE IS STILL TIME-"

Quickly, he replaced the gag. "Shut up, monster. I just needed to hear that voice. To be sure."

He stepped back and drew his spatha. Guide me, Aide.

Were any other girls found?

He passed the question along. Damodara answered: "One. She's not more than two years old. I think she's the daughter of one of the provincial governors. I have her in a chamber upstairs. I haven't known what to do with her, either."

Destroy the machines first. Without the machines, Link is trapped in this body sitting before you. The little girl upstairs will be… probably not a very normal child. But a harmless one.

Again, Aide anticipated the next question:

These are just machines, Belisarius. No different, in the end, than a simple pottery wheel. In some ways, in fact, even more fragile. Anastasius and a big hammer will do fine.

That required a delay, to have a maul brought down. But, eventually, the maul arrived and Anastasius went to work.

With a vengeance, as the expression went-and no expression here. Not even in the battle in the tight confines of Great Lady Holi's cabin had Belisarius seen Anastasius swing a mace with such violence.

In three minutes, it was done, and Anastasius stepped back.

Throughout, Link had simply observed. There had been no expression at all in the girl's face. The eyes had neither narrowed nor widened. There had been no frown. No tightening of the jaws.

Nothing.

It is simply a calculator, Belisarius. Even now, when the probabilities within which it moves are a tiny fraction of one percent, it is still calculating. It will never stop calculating. It ca

There came the crystalline equivalent of a deep sigh. It is really, really not human. Not even in the way we crystals are, or the Great Ones. It is just a machine itself. Programmed to do what it does-can only do-by monsters.

Yes, I understand. Belisarius stepped forward, within a pace of the girl bound to the chair. His grip on the spatha was tight, much tighter than he would have held it in an actual fight.

Will it…

Yes. Destroy the girl's body and you destroy Link. It does not "die," exactly, for it was never alive at all. But it will be gone. It will no longer exist.

Still, he hesitated. Whatever he knew, his emotional reactions could not avoid the monster's form.

True enough, Belisarius had slain young girls. Many times, in fact. Just recently, his burning and destruction in the Ganges campaign had condemned many such to death. Damodara had agreed to send relief expeditions, as soon as possible. But with the inevitable chaos attendant upon a successful rebellion, no expedition could possibly arrive in time to save everyone.

Dozens of seven and eight year old girls just like this one-more likely hundreds, or possibly even thousands-would be dying soon. Some were dead already. Each and every one of whom could, rightfully, have had the words Murdered by Belisarius engraved on their tomb markers.

Still, he hadn't done it personally. And if that difference might be meaningless, on a philosophical level, a man does not hold and wield a spatha using philosophy. He uses muscles and nerves and blood shaped and molded by emotion from the time he is born.

Don't be foolish, Aide said softly. You know the answer. Why be proud, at the end, when you never were before?

He was right, of course. Belisarius stepped back.

"Valentinian. A last service, if you would."

"Sure, General."

The cataphract came forward, his spatha flashed, and it was over. A spray of blood across shattered machinery, and a small head rolling to a stop in a corner. The gag never even came off, as neatly and economically-as miserly-as it had been done.

"Thank you."

"My pleasure."

Belisarius turned to Damodara, whose shoulders seemed slumped in relief. "And now, Emperor-"

Do that later, Belisarius. Please. I want to go outside.

Belisarius hesitated, for a moment. There were the needs of politics, but…

This was Aide's great triumph, not Damodara's.

Certainly, if you wish. I can understand that you find this chamber unsettling.

It's not that. It's just a cellar, now. That blood is just blood. That severed head just one of many I've seen. But I still don't want this to be…

He hesitated. Then: It's not where I want to leave. I want to see the sky over India, when it happens.

A great terrible fear clutched Belisarius' heart.

What are you talking about?

Again, that crystalline sort of sigh. I've been glad, these past years, that you never figured it out. I was afraid you would, and it would just cause you pain-since you could have done nothing else anyway. But the time is here, now.

Softly, gently: The moment Link was destroyed, the future changed. Not in all ways, and-it's too complicated to explain, and I don't have much time left-the people alive there now won't be destroyed. Time is like a flowing river, and if you shift the banks it will still most likely end at the same delta. But I live here and now, not then and there, and the timeline that created me-the need for me-has vanished. Will vanish, at least, very soon.

"You're dying?" Without realizing he'd done so, Belisarius cried the words aloud. Then, frantically, scrabbled to bring the jewel's pouch from under his tunic.

It's more like I simply become impossible. But I suppose that's all that death is, in the end. That point at which the almost infinitely-complex interactions of natural forces that we call a "life" just becomes too improbable to continue.